An American Hippie in Israel is a completely unique psychedelic feature from Israeli director Amos Sefer, who never made another film. The picture follows the broadly symboic adventures of a the fun-loving Mike (Asher Tzarfati), the titular Hippie, as he travels to The Holy Land looking for meaning and understanding, but mostly just looking for a good time. Mike is almost immediately picked up by Elizabeth (Lili Avidan), the two jauntily dance through early '70s Tel Aviv, before eventually taking their own little slice of free love back at her place. It's there that Mike unveils his master plan to create a home free from war with other like-minded individuals. You know, like you do.
The new couple decide to make this dream a reality and gather a healthy crowd of equally dippy Israeli youth to join them. Among the new friends are Komo (Schmuel Wolf), who only speaks Hebrew, and his new lady Francoise (Tsilla Karny). The larger group eventually makes their way to an abandoned building where they sing, dance, and make merry before a bizarre tragedy befalls them, leaving only the two couples to follow the dream.
Upon their recovery from the shock, Mike & Elizabeth and Komo & Francoise decide to make their own land of peace and happiness on an island just off the shore. THey head to the shop, buy the necessaries, and all seems to be going well, until the shine of Utopian communal living wears off and the girls get hungry. One mishap after another foils the group's ability to survive in the ecstatic manner in which they arrived, and eventually all hell breaks loose. This leads to some spectactularly ludicrous on-screen hijinks as the peaceniks abandon civility and fall victim to their baser instincts.
Honestly, the metaphor for the futile pursuit of communal anarchich living is pretty damn broad and not subtle in any way, but it makes for some wonderfully absurd visual moments. A pair of white faced mimes follows Mike from the beginning of the film, the harbingers of bad fortune and the Yin to his Yang. Seemingly eternal stretches of frolicking montage and silent dream sequences test the viewers patience, but the wicked goofball earnestness of the endeavor is just too charming to discount.
An American Hippie in Israel is a film that must be seen to be understood, and it won't be to everyone's tastes. The filmmaker has no sense of pacing, the English script (the film was post-dubbed) feels about as natural as the papier mache sharks that menace Mike late in the film, and the story moves from juvenile to preachy in the blink of an eye. However, none of that was planned, and the honest belief in the filmmakers that their movie could become a touchstone for the youth of the age is genuinely touching, if naive. That's what brings a cult to a film, you can't manufacture hope, but you can sure as shit laugh at it when the end product is as unintentionally hilarious as An American Hippie in Israel.
The Disc:
Grindhouse Releasing have just released a single disc Blu-ray edition of An American Hippie in Israel to replace their out of print 3-disc edition. This pared down version keeps almost all of the bonus content from the original pressing apart from a DVD version of the film and a DVD copy of the original director's cut titled The Hitchhiker. That being said, the amount of extra material even on this edition is pretty staggering for a film of this pedigree. More on that later.
An American Hippie in Israel looks pretty amazing on Blu-ray, especially given the circumstances under which it's surely been kept for the last 40 years. The image is a bit washed out, and the contrast is low; for example, there are no true blacks in the entire film. However, to my eyes it appears that Grindhouse chose to lighten the film rather than lose fine detail which would surely have been lost to shadows in what was probably pretty faded source material.
In terms of audio, we are given an unusual pair of tracks to choose from. The first is the original English dubbed Mono track, which has fared pretty well. Dialogue and effects are clear, the music (which is plentiful and borders on madness inducing) is bouncy well-articulated, and the track is remarkably free from background noise, even during the silent sequences. The second track is labeled "The New Beverly Experience", which is a surround track made up of a live audience reaction to the film at the famed LA theater. Normally such a track would infuriate me, but I found myself leaning more and more toward this as an option given that this is the kind of film that begs to be seen with a crowd, and if you can't always have one around, this one does the trick. It's actually kind of fun.
Grindhouse never skimps on extras, and this disc is no different. The most significant features are an hour-long interview with star Asher Tzarfati and Schmuel Wolf in which they descibe in great detail the burgeouning Israeli film scene of the time and their different careers including their times with the eventual kings of low-budget action, Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus, who would eventually go on to found The Cannon Group. Also included are Amos Sefer's first satirical silent short, a 30 minute featurette on the film's cult following in Israel, a TV news special from Israeli television on the cult, interviews with different performers including a singer from the film, deleted scenes (which appeared to be more extended scenes to me), and lots of trailers and promotional photos. All in all, the lengthy interviews conducted in Israel in 2009 are easily the standouts as they trace Israeli film history over nearly 40 years.
I guess what I'm trying to say is BUY THIS DISC! If you're just now hearing of this, but you enjoy no-budget outsider cinema, you'll love it. If you knew about it but missed the initial limited edition Blu-ray, there's plenty of material to make this edition worthwhile, you'll love it. If you need a good party film, a good laugh, or just want to see something you've never seen on screen before, you'll love it. Grindhouse Releasing have put an unbelieveable amount of effort into this release of a film that's been on their roster for so long that many fans never thought it would materialize on home video. I think it's the least we can do to reward them for their work.